


you are the roof when I rain

by ofsevenseas



Series: the minor fall and the major lift [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Minor Violence, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsevenseas/pseuds/ofsevenseas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John examines his major relationships with women to date (his daemon included), he becomes aware of a pattern of regular abuse. Lily begs to differ, because John is an idiot, and deserves every bit of it.</p><p>John and Lily, at 12, at 18, and beyond.</p><p>(A minor spot of John manhandling Kara happens fairly early on, which may or may not trigger, please read at your own discretion.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are the roof when I rain

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks are due to my tireless beta C, who was basically dragged kicking and screaming into Person of Interest and then forced through an entire roller coaster of feelings. I'm sorry, bb, but I do it out of love. And now you have Carter and these weirdos in your life! :D
> 
> In addition, thanks are due to Leupagus, who was kind enough to give me advice, and tolerate a lot of rambling in her tumblr inbox.

Lily stalks through the spring grasses, silent, deadly, nary a whisker twitching as the wind blows its way softly through the top of her head, though John cannot help wrinkling his nose at the sensation of ruffled ears. “Stop that,” she commands, “We’re on a mission here.”

He knows, really, that the daemon bond doesn’t transfer sensation, not like that, everybody says so, but he likes to imagine, sometimes, the feeling of the soft dirt packed under his paw pads, that a part of his soul is making an indelible print on the world. The short dense fur under her neck bunches up when she tenses to spring, incredibly soft and - “John,” Lily barks, which sends him into a fit of giggles. “Stop distracting me.” John rolls a little further downhill, testing the limits of their bond, feeling for that little tug everyone says is there. “Oh come on, it’s funny.”

She rolls her eyes, he can tell, even facing away from him, hindquarters wriggling and annoyed. “You’re terrible,” she says, and then pounces into his mom’s prized daffodils, emerging with one drooping stalk.

“Well done, Lils,” he chuckles. “You sure killed that flower dead.”

She huffs, and then drops the sunshine-yellow head down on his face, casually walking across his face to curl up on his chest, her favorite spot, while he sputters. John knows, and more to the point, Lily also knows that he would never accidentally dislodge her, so she waves a gingery tail in his nose when John finally manages to brush away the daffodil, snickering all the while.

It is the last memory he has of Lily taking on a form with color, because that’s the day Aunt Susan makes the climb from the house up to the hill, her face terrible with news, Esther’s snout and ears tucked in the hollow of her throat.

-

John surfaces into the cotton-wool taste of medical-grade tranquilizers and growls, reaching automatically for his gun. His arm is pinned, however, by a heavy and familiar weight, and when he opens his eyes Lily looks down at him solemnly, Shani perched on top of her head. She noses along the side of his face, the one sign of affection she will allow herself anymore, and then hops off.

He levers himself up, not without some difficulty. He hasn’t felt this disconnected from his own body since he’d made his way past the separation proving grounds, for his very first test at the Agency. Kara appears in the doorway, with a characteristic clacking of her heels.

She’s holding a flute of champagne, and as his eyes focus in her direction, she makes an ironic toasting gesture. “All hail the conquering hero.”

John shoves himself up from the bed, adrenaline and anger substituting for true strength, and propels himself forward to loom over Kara and hold her against the wall. He’s moving to press his arm solidly across her throat when he hears the click of a safety disengaging. Kara taps him in the belly with the muzzle, twice, affectionate. “Luckily for us, I know your Neanderthal ways. Did your ex know about your particular fondness for throats? Or are you generally more of a bondage guy?”

Of course, John thinks, Kara never speaks except to disarm, her verbal sallies arriving in a one-two punch to the gut. Behind him, on the bed, he feels more than hears Lily’s subvocal growling, rippling into Shani’s feathers as he takes off and circles Kara’s head. He’s not sure if Lily is angry at Kara for bringing Jessica into this, or at him for using Kara’s recent injury against her.

“Come on,” she continues, “Get your ass back on that bed before you fall over.”

“Their daemons,” John finally manages, tongue thick and uncooperative, “What did you do, Kara?” He wants to shout at her, fist his hands into her rich brown hair and pull until her throat is free for Lily, an old-fashioned penitence spilled onto the ground.

Kara rolls her eyes. “Look at you.” He doesn’t know who fired the tranq darts, but he’ll find them too, he’ll find them all. “Waking up in the best hotel in New York and not even an iota of appreciation.”

It’s not his fault, John thinks dully, that it’s been years and he can still barely understand Kara’s language, the way she leans casually into her surroundings and dismisses all his concerns. She’s the spider and he’s the fly, perpetually struggling for understanding, webs closing in on him and his reactions molasses-slow. Silently, Lily puts her chin on his knee, eyes liquid and pitying.

“What I find most egregious, John,” Kara continues, setting her miraculously entire flute of champagne down on the ground, gun relentlessly pointed at his head. “Is that you had the temerity to endanger our entire mission going forward, for two expendable civilians. I thought I’d scoured the Boy Scout out of you.” John’s eyes flicker, irresistibly, to her neck, where the bruises are already showing. She’ll have more tomorrow, he thinks to himself, the shameful surge of viciousness cresting again.

His hand tightens convulsively in Lily’s scruff when Kara approaches.

When he looks back up again, her mouth curves gently into what he can only guess is indulgent, for her. He remembers that she likes it when he gets vicious, encourages it, even.

“I’m not a boy scout,” John says into the silence, almost petulantly, but honestly, what did Kara expect? There’s a question here, that maybe he doesn’t have to ask, even given Kara’s propensity for explosives and shooting people, traitors, his mind supplies – maybe.

Her lips curl at him, exquisite and red. “No, I’m beginning to realize, John.” He must look inquisitive, because she leans forward and brushes a kiss on his forehead. “You’re a knight in shining armor.”

Shani chirps at Lily, a bright, reassuring sound, and then takes flight to follow his human. Lily jumps up into his lap, huge paws pushing against his shoulders with inevitable force, and he follows backwards. For a moment he lies still, the breath knocked out of him, staring at Lily’s pointed muzzle inches away from his face, before she curls up on his chest, one pointed ear flickering even when she’s tucked snout to rump. John tentatively scratches at the base of her ears, and her tail thumps approvingly, incongruous on the fine linen of his – their bed.

“She wouldn’t do any of this if she didn’t like you,” Lily says, voice hushed even with a shower running in the other room. He grimaces, because Kara’s brand of affection is not without its own dangers. John can easily imagine her regard as a fire that cleanses at the same time it damns, when Lily uncurls her tail right into his face. “The kids and their daemons are fine, John. Go to sleep.”

He feels Kara’s lips on his skin for days afterwards, a brand on his forehead, Cain’s mark permanent and unchanging.

-

Puyallup is small enough that when a newcomer arrives in the backseat of an old Ford, everyone is talking about it - about him. John doesn’t really care, because he has Lily in his arms, and her soft cat nose against his own. He hasn’t let go of her, really, and the last thing he wants to see is his aunt’s nosy neighbors, so he keeps his face pressed against Lily’s on the drive to his new home, Esther scampering to the back seat every once in a while to check up on him.

They pull up at last, to a single-floor blue house identical to every other house on the street. John can’t remember the last time he visited, most of his summers spent on the farm, helping his mom sort out the best growers of the year, carefully marking plots where the bulbs would be saved. Lily stretches up and nuzzles his face gently. She remembers too, had practiced being a silly-faced lemur, a golden-furred monkey, a liquid-eyed sloth, flickering between the shapes and daintily picking the stems up with her nimble fingers. He was supposed to start helping with the flower harvesting this year.

Aunt Susan settles a hand against his shoulder, holding the door open. “I know your mom preferred to stay up at the farm”, she begins, “but we grew up in this house, and it’s just as much your house as mine now.” John nods dumbly, because he doesn’t want to be rude, but this house doesn’t even have a proper garden.

Nothing happens when he sets foot on the welcome mat, nor when he toes off his shoes, not even when he shuffles into the kitchen and sees the veritable mountain of casseroles that have taken up residence there. Lily flies out of his arms, a brief flutter of huge owl wings, before she lands and pats at the plastic wrapping dubiously with ermine-curious paws.

“Looks like everyone’s stopped by already, then,” Aunt Susan comments, two small duffle bags in her hands. “Look, let’s get your stuff settled in, and then we’ll see about supper, okay?”

John takes one of the bags, shamefaced. He should know better than to leave his aunt with all the work. Lily pads her way across the counter and then jumps on the other bag, headbutting Esther companionably.

Aunt Susan looks back at him and smiles, small and tentative, the shape of her mouth exactly like his mother’s, though the curve is different.

-

They must have improved the transmitters significantly, because John can hear every charming, full-throated laugh Kara produces, every tinkle of silverware against the fine china, the strains of something classical and refined played by actual live musicians – if he tries hard enough, John can even taste the veal scallopini on Kara’s plate. Lily’s somewhere across the street in the house with her, having slipped, several hours prior, through the cadre of black-suited security conspicuous even in this particular corner of Belgravia.

She had grumbled a little at the indignity of using the pet-smart door, but it was the only way to enter without staging a full-frontal assault from the street. They both agreed that they weren’t leaving Kara and Shani to fend for themselves in what was essentially a tiny fortress of a mansion, and she’d stood patiently when he fumbled with the transmitter-embedded collar. At the end of the day, he reflects damply, the joke is probably on him.

If Jessica were here, she’d be admiring the way the white stucco remained bright even under the misting of perpetual rain. She’d probably laugh at how disgruntled he feels, clutching rain-slicked binoculars and checking that the wax is keeping the worst of the moisture out of his rifle. He shakes his head, water droplets flying everywhere. John can already envision the hours of cleaning this will necessitate, and is comforted by thoughts of Kara’s moue of discontent at weapons scattered in parts around their safe house.

The worst of it isn’t even the rain, John likes rain, had grown up perpetually half drenched in rain and covered in earthy dirt. It’s the distinct memory of cleaning everything of sand, hunting down cracks and pockets where a few contrary grains remain, and the conviction that he will never be clean again.

The point is: everyone is warmer and drier than John is at the moment.

“Next time,” he says, whisper soft, “ _You_ can take sentry duty.”

Right on cue, Kara laughs again, a honey-smooth enticement that hints at coy but is mostly just outright seduction. “John, as delightful as it is must be to watch you sip wine and make faces at my gracious host, you’re not exactly to her taste.”

He’s watching the night shift of guards driving up, and misses the next few sentences. “- and anyway, your preferred method of interrogation is to hit people until they tell you what you want to hear.”

When the third man gets out of the black SUV, Kara’s voice drops away in the scramble for the rifle he’d set aside. “He’s here,” John reports while double-checking through the scope. “I thought you said her brother was going to be out of town until tomorrow?”

She must have gotten to an empty room, because all the extraneous noise cuts off, and Kara says, impatiently. “Well, what are you waiting for? Take the shot. I’ve been done here for ages.”

John doesn’t say, “You’re still inside,” but Kara has this uncanny ability to read his mind, so she says, impatience clear over the transmission, “For heaven’s sake, Reese. I can take care of myself.”

He allows himself one bullet to drop the target, and moves on to the rest of the protective detail. Expensive and well trained as they are, none of them pinpoint his location in time, and he makes it to the rendezvous with five minutes to spare. He spends it fretting outside, pacing around the car, worried that they’d moved ahead too fast, that he should have given Kara time to heal completely.

John can tell through his bond that Lily’s fine, but not much more – and he knew there were too many free variables in their plan, but he’d let Kara talk him into playing the game her way. Except now there are ten bodies in the street and their very dangerous weapons smuggler, having most likely found her dead brother, will certainly hunger for more.

He hears the tapping of Kara’s shoes and impulsively decides to drink the cup of coffee he bought for her, resentment and relief burning down his throat in equal measures.

“Careful there, you’re going to wear a groove in the cement.”

Kara’s smiling, the look of slow, lush delight that warms John at the same time it infuriates him. It never fails to send him off-balance, so that when she asks “Is that coffee for me?” satisfaction in every vowel, John tosses the empty cup at her and opens the car door for Lily, towel already laid out on the back seat, where she sprawls to her heart’s content. There’s still a bit of blood on her rain-damp fur. Realization hits like unanticipated recoil, knocks the breath out of him - Kara had always intended to kill her dinner partner.

Shani pecks curiously at the paper cup, and then he too, moves into the shelter of the car. “Oh John, you shouldn’t have,” Kara continues, arch. “But here, I brought you something too. Your favorite, right?”

She hands him a single daffodil, its bright yellow drowned by the rain and sodium streetlights. John can feel the wilting stalk in his fingers, and he knows without looking that Lily’s scrambled into an upright position inside the car, ears perked forward. Kara doesn’t give gifts for no reason.

John puts it in an empty coffee cup, his own this time, and sets it down on the sidewalk. The stalk is cut long; he has to prop the cup and daffodil both against a nearby lamppost so they won’t fall down.

Once he’s in the car, he places his hands carefully at 10 and 2, and says, evenly, “Did I pass your test?”

Kara is laughing at him again, but at least she hands him the map.

-

It takes a few days to sort out the paperwork, words like ‘appropriate caregiver’ and ‘relative preference’ coming out of the caseworker’s mouth – John’s not supposed to be at these meetings, strictly speaking, but he still fits into the pantry, and Lily’s got good ears when she’s a bat. Aunt Susan catches him at it pretty early on, but she just gives him a Look, the same Look that means John has to make some of his signature blueberry buttermilk pancakes to appease her.

He’s pretty sure grandma’s recipe would work on her.

Lily nibbles on the edge of a stack thoughtfully, rabbit-faced in the early afternoon light. “You should ease back on the butter, it’s a bit rich.”

He’s been making these pancakes since he grew tall enough to reach for all the ingredients. John bites back irritation and goes with it. “Fine, but I’m not starting all over again.”

Lily thumps at the counter with one back leg, irritated in her turn. “We’re going to talk about this sometime, you know. I’m your daemon, I can tell when you need a kick to the head.”

“That hasn’t worked on me since I broke my arm.” Lily sniffs, fur rippling with the force of her displeasure. Momentarily, she becomes a snarling badger, and then she shakes herself with visible effort and becomes a plump, heather grey rabbit again.

“You could make an effort.” John actually puts down the sponge and pan to stare at Lily, and then looks over at the large plate of pancakes to make his point.

Lily makes an indeterminate huffing sound, long grey ears flicking back and forth. “You can’t make excuses about being in a new school forever, this is your third fight this week. People are going to talk.”

John carefully rinses the bowl of batter clean, and reaches around for a towel to dry. “Yeah, but people are always going to talk. We’re used to that, Lils.”

Lily sits back on her haunches, and stares at his back until he turns, neck heating to the intensity of her gaze. “You’re not usually this stupid.”

“Well,” he grins, “I _am_ always this stubborn.” He raises an eyebrow at her, waits for her to laugh and talk about other things, like they’ve always done in the past, two actors playing a well-rehearsed script, every bit of interaction locked to each other.

Lily’s whiskers tremble, the way they do before she snorts and declares him terrible. “If you don’t stop, they’re going to place you in another home. Everyone already talks about Aunt Susan, because of Esther, and you’re making things difficult for her.”

He’s aware that his hands have begun rubbing nervous tracks on his jeans, and stills them. “I won’t be here for long, anyway. You can’t find a decent job in Puyallup, and all the good farms are – they’re not here.”

“John, I miss the farm too, but you know Aunt Susan made the right decision. The money will come in useful for college –”

He looks down, swipes at the worn linoleum with his big toe, and mumbles, “I don’t care about college. That was always mom talking.”

“You’re not suited to the army.” It’s the first time she’s said this out loud, the words hanging in the air between them, ever since a thin, one-page letter came in the mail. His mom had avoided the phone, right up until –

Lily is insistent. “You’re smarter than half your class, John, you’re only thirteen. There’s a lifetime ahead of us - we can go to college, figure this out.”

All at once, the mouthwatering smells in the kitchen turn sour. “There’s nothing to figure out, Lils.”

She sounds heartbroken, when she says, “Always leaving first, John, that’s not a good way to live.”

“Yeah,” his voice cracks on the lone syllable, “I know.” She hops to the edge of the counter, and John reaches out for her at the same time she nuzzles up. He swallows, feeling Lily’s soft fur under his palm. “But I have you, right?”

-

The thing with wine is, John decides, the thing is that wine is an unholy abomination sent to torture his taste buds, and nobody can prove otherwise. Kara pokes one of her crutches into his foot, and demands, “Well?”

“It tastes like a grape crawled into my mouth and died,” John says, because he’s been smelling wine, inhaling wine fumes, and swishing the stuff for the better part of the afternoon, and he’s through making up in-mouth sensations for Kara to make faces over. “Can I have a piece of bread now?”

Lily’s making a fool of herself in the nearby brook, falling with great splashing sounds and then staggering to the shallow banks, shaking water everywhere, including on Shani, who gives chase. If John were in a better mood, he’d say that she’s actually laughing, but he’s pretty sure she’s just overheating from all that running.

“No.” Kara reaches for the row of identical, masked bottles standing on the patio table. “I can’t take you anywhere if you can’t even drink wine like a civilized person.”

“Why,” John says, careful of all his syllables, “Do I have to learn to drink wine in the first place? Don’t they have beer or scotch or whiskey at international spy gatherings?”

“It’s bad enough that you’re all elbows at the dinner table, John, I don’t want to have to rescue you when you fail to blend in over wine. At least I've taught you a passable poker face. Wining and dining is the next logical step.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” This earns him another painful jab with the crutches, so John picks up the nearest bottle and wishes for oblivion.

Still, he just can't get over - “So we’re staying at a random millionaire’s summer home –" Kara interrupts. “Unused summer cottage."

He turns around and gestures at the converted millhouse behind him, and then wishes that he hadn’t moved after all. “This place is the size of a palace, Kara, and also, we’re housebreaking and drinking his wine?”

“It’s just,” he stumbles, mentally floundering for dignity, “I’m feeling a little punished, here.”

She smirks. “It serves him right for not guarding it better. Now try the Beaujolais.”

-

The week before school ends, John gets suspended for breaking another student’s nose. Aunt Susan storms up to the principal’s office, Esther running in agitated circles on her shoulder, and talks it down to one after-school detention and volunteer library hours next year.

He’s not too crazy about it, but Lily bites him gently with her oversized front teeth, and he thanks Aunt Susan quietly in front of the school. After his detention, during which Bobby Martin and his gang made spitballs and lobbed them at Lily while he fumed uselessly, he runs out the front door of the school and doesn’t stop until he almost trips over the railroad tracks.

John sprawls back on the ground, panting and digging his hands into the gravel and dirt to keep himself grounded. Lily hops onto his stomach, furry nose twitching with amusement, “Did that make you feel better? I’m pretty sure you almost knocked over Mrs. Calhoun back there.”

He makes a face at the sky, eyes closed against the sun. Mrs. Calhoun is 76 going on forever, and probably going to raise hell at the next neighborhood watch meeting about young hooligans and the deterioration of good old American values.

“Here,” someone says to John, “You must be thirsty.” Lily muffles a laugh and hops off, hind feet kicking just a tad too hard on takeoff. John sits up, grumpy at being disturbed. His face must speak for itself, because she skips back with a giggle, mason jar full of water still in her hand, buttercup yellow hair gleaming in the sun.

John scrambles up, gravel flying everywhere, aware of her warm brown eyes, a snub-nosed face still too close for his comfort. Cute as a button, his mind supplies, borrowing Aunt Susan’s description of Lily in his confusion.

“Hi,” he says, hands and feet feeling about ten sizes too big, and lightheaded.

She grins at him. “Julie says you punched Bobby Martin in the face.”

John runs a hand through his hair, embarrassed and unsure if she’s going to chase him along the length of the railroad tracks for his transgressions. “Um.”

She grins even wider, all freckles and toothy glee. “Don’t worry, I think he’s a jerk.” She pauses to tuck one strand of flyaway hair behind her ear, and asks, as if it doesn’t matter at all, “Is your daemon settled? She’s cute!”

Lily looks up innocently from where she’s nibbling at a dandelion, and flicks an ear, as if to say, ‘Who, me?’

The tiny canary daemon on her shoulder flutters down to where Lily is, and changes to a rabbit too, almost spherical with fur and looking perpetually concussed and ill-tempered. He shuffles a little close to Lily, and then touches noses with her. Lily snorts happily and nuzzles right back, shoving one of his ears into a lopsided clump.

John wants the earth to open up and swallow himself. Failing that, a freak asteroid would be nice.

But she laughs, and extends her free hand out to him, “Sorry, my name’s Jessica, and that’s Freyr. We’re happy to meet you.” John surreptitiously scrubs his hands against his jeans, and shakes her hand awkwardly, mumbling an “Us too,” into his feet.

“Freyr,” Jessica says, “Stop being embarrassing.” She sits down on the gravel, and pats the ground next to her. Freyr flicks his tail, and ignores her. Jessica looks up at him, one hand shading her eyes.

“Come on, drink some water. I promise I’m not contagious anymore.” John takes the proffered jar, and says, “I’m new around here –“ She interrupts him, “I heard! You’re the guy who’s been giving Bobby Martin and his butthead friends what-for, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” he pauses, looking for a way to put things so she doesn’t think he’s a freak, “They don’t like Lily.”

“Huh,” Jessica says, “Have they met her?”

John makes a face, and she laughs. “Fair warning, I’ve been at home with bronchitis all month so I don’t know what stupid things they’re up to.”

“You look fine?” He says, half uncertain, because she seems a little pale, sure, but otherwise healthy. Jessica gives him a look, like she knows he’s dodging the question. “It’s because she’s a rabbit, isn’t it?”

“Ah, well, they think irregular daemons run in my family.” Jessica frowns, but apparently chooses another conversational horn upon which to impale herself. “Settling as a rabbit isn’t a bad thing! They’re good luck.”

Lily hops over, trailing Freyr, still looking halfway between confused and disgruntled. She climbs up into his lap, and addresses Jessica directly. “We’re not settled, though, is the thing.”

“Really?” John winces, and Jessica immediately scrunches her nose in apology, “Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to shout like that. But hasn’t she been like this for a while now? Everyone says that the shape that lasts longest at thirteen is how you’ll settle.”

“I don’t think this is it,” Lily continues thoughtfully. Freyr twitches his nose and looks disdainfully at Lily’s blatant flouting of social convention, but Jessica scratches him behind the ruff absentmindedly, and he subsides into resentful silence. “But it feels right. We don’t care if it looks sissy.”

“Huh,” Jessica says. John gets the feeling that she’s not often speechless.

Freyr nudges at her hand, and Jessica says, with sudden decision. “You used to live on a flower farm, didn’t you?” John, caught flatfooted at this surprising change in topic, nods.

“Wanna come with me to pick some daffodils? The best ones grow by the riverside!” Lily is already dragging John’s backpack over, voice muffled as she speaks with a strap in her mouth. “Daffodils are our favorite.”

-

John wakes up to something poking him in the cheek. His mouth tastes uniformly awful, there’s three days worth of stubble scraping the back of his hand where it pillows his face, and his back feels strained, like no amount of ice packs will ever make it work normally again. This, he decides, is not a good day. He hasn’t really kept tally since working with Kara, but he’s reasonably sure there hasn’t been a good day yet.

Maybe the poking will stop if he stays still long enough.

“Dear god, John,” Kara sounds about as awful as he feels, which doesn’t make him feel better when he cracks an eye open and realizes that she’s poking him with her toe. “Did you just pass out on me after getting us in?”

There isn’t an answer he could give that wouldn’t wreck his dignity into the ground, so he ignores her as he tentatively tries to get his feet under him. The needles and pins awaken a separate awareness, and he looks over at Lily, curled bodily around Kara’s feet. There’s no real point of contact, but he feels every shift of her legs in the periphery of his bond to Lily. It’s a phantom discomfort he’s learned to deal with, and he idly wonders what it’s like to have a daemon that shuns all contact, even with other daemons.

“You know, I didn’t think army boys were trauma surgeons. You got something to share with the class, John?” She’s still deathly pale, propped against the cream-and-blue striped silk pillows, imperious and arch, and John knows he’s giving it all away, hates that she’s burrowed under his skin and made a hollow for herself in his chest.

“I called Snow,” he says finally, when the silence becomes unbearable. “He had contacts.”

Kara tries to look down at her own abdomen, winces, and then flicks a riotously blue pillow with a blood-caked fingernail. “I’m guessing this was his idea?”

The worn stones underfoot highlight the sumptuous comfort surrounding them, and John can hear a brook, merrily flowing away behind the house – a small mansion, really. He’s not sure, but there was the shape of a mill in the dark, shadowy against faint starlight. It’s rural, but utterly unfamiliar all the same.

“Uh, he said it was a summer lodge, we should be good for a month or two.” It’s definitely not an Agency property, unless the rumors about the black budget are true.

Kara narrows her eyes. “And our intel?”

John’s fingers itch for the solidity of a gun in his hand, an automatic danger signal going off in his head at the look on her face. “It was good,” he begins.

“- But something went wrong.” She finishes for him, not even a question. John nods. “He says it’s sorted, but you’re on mandatory leave until you’re field-worthy again.”

“He’s holding out on us.” Kara says. When John had remarked as much to Snow, he’d retorted that an agent of Kara’s caliber and experience should have known better than to break cover, and then John’s hands were full with Lily, trying to stop her from biting Snow’s fox daemon in half. “She saved our lives,” Lily had snarled, lunging for Romulus.

None of that, however, matters, so John nods at her again, “I thought you said we were just here to pull the triggers?” Kara snorts.

She points out, “Guns aren’t any good if we’re just firing blindly. Though you deserve brownie points for remembering what I said.”

John raises his hands in mock surrender, “You threatened to shoot me in the kneecaps if I didn’t.”

Shani chooses this moment to fly in, yellow-brown plumage flashing bright in the slants of sunlight flooding through the windows. He perches on Kara’s shoulder, careful, the white streak behind his eyes giving him an almost sorrowful mien. He flashes one beady eye at John when Kara winces her way through a laugh.

Feeling immoderately guilty, even though he’d taken down the shooter who’d gotten Kara in the first place, John hurries to their packs, thrown haphazardly on the floor, and replaces the bandaging with steady hands. The stitches are tiny and neat, but the sutures show black against Kara’s skin.

“The medic said that it missed your stomach by half an inch,” Shani says, not a single feather out of place. Kara flicks her eyes at John, who gently pats the wound with disinfected gauze pads, and uses his teeth to tear at the tape. It’s a conversation between daemon and human, accusatory and fraught, and John wouldn’t get between them for all the money in the world.

“You’re familiar with _semper fi_ as a concept, I believe,” Kara says, extra dry. Shani bites back, “We’re not in the Marines anymore, Kara.”

For a moment, John envies Kara. For all the vitriol and anger in Shani’s voice, he cares. There’s an edge of rawness, of unpleasantness in how they speak to each other, but Lily hasn’t really spoken to him since he’d walked onto the proving grounds, since he’d walked voluntarily out of the enclosure that kept them together.

Ten yards in, he couldn’t hear Lily howling over the pounding and wrenching of his own heart, but John kept walking. He wonders how Kara found Shani again, if he can do the same, someday.

“Hey!” Kara says, face only a breath away. “We really gotta work on your tells, boy scout.”

John flinches back, the momentum carrying him almost bodily off the bed. “I –“

“Ugh, do not even start with me,” she says, sounding so much like Lily that he feels off-balance all over again. “Look, I don’t care what kind of stuff they let you get away with in the Army, but you have got to stop broadcasting everything to everyone.”

“I don’t –“ John tries to get a token protest in, but she’s already off again.

“I’m not saying you’re not adorable, or whatever it is you want to be, but you’re like a children’s book, John. Everyone can read, ages five and up. Frankly, I’m surprised you survived this long.”

“Right,” he decides, “but this can wait until you’re not bleeding from a bullet hole in the stomach.”

Kara’s eyeroll is eloquent and prophesies more torment in his near future, but John figures the greater part of valor is discretion, and goes off to find themselves some food.

-

Jessica finds him on the riverbank, the night of graduation, Freyr a flicker of canary yellow in the light reflecting off the river. John’s still in his fancy clothes, though he’s undone the button at his neck, because despite what Lily says about ‘dashing’, he prefers not choking.

“I got your note.” Jessica says, settling down with her usual grace, and it hurts John to look at her, so he stares instead at Lily, a great lolling shape in the semi-darkness, tongue out in the June heat.

“Hey,” she bumps him in the shoulder companionably, “I have it on reasonably good authority that you’re not allowed to sulk at your own graduation.”

Freyr flies by John’s ear, his passage marked by a gentle disturbance in the air, and he and Lily are off again, chasing each other like they’re still unsettled kid’s daemons.

“I’m enlisting tomorrow.” He says in a rush, because if he doesn’t the words will never make their way out.

Beside him, Jessica is quiet. Both daemons circle back, concerned, and Lily collapses on the ground in a huff, not bothering to keep her claws away from John’s shin.

“I guess I knew this was coming, huh?”

John shrugs. “After Aunt Susan died, there wasn’t much point in sticking around.” Except you, he doesn’t say.

She hears it anyway, because she’s Jessica, “It’s only two years, John. You can’t wait?”

“You’ll meet new people. Better ones.”

Jessica laughs, “What, in med school? Have you met any surgeons lately?”

“They’ll like you.” He’s as certain in this as he is in other fundamental truths: the earth is round, the sun rises in the east, Jessica will be loved, wherever she goes.

“You’re going to be away all the time now.” It’s true. Whether he’s deployed or not, he won’t be a part of her life anymore.

“Guess you’ll have to show the cubbyhole to someone else.” John’s a little sorry to leave the library and its secrets, but at least they will be safe in her hands. He doesn’t think about the small shoebox full of pebbles, dried flowers, and notes from Jessica in his hands. It looks like – Lily sinks her claws into his shin, a reminder to stay on topic. She’s not happy with him either, but Lily is his, and she always follows where he leads.

John can’t tell in the twilight, but he thinks Jessica looks a little outraged at the idea of someone else using their hiding spot. He clears his throat, and says quickly, “Could you keep this for me? We’re not allowed to bring too much stuff.”

He hands her the battered first edition book and then the box. She opens the box, and identifies the contents by touch. “Is this - ?” 

“Yes,” John replies, and then startles when she inhales, a sharp little gasp, and starts crying. Lily says, “Oh dear god, John, you idiot.” He still doesn't get it, but Lily sits up and knocks John over to get to Jessica, circling her anxiously and whining.

“Hey,” Lily says, “Hey, Jessica.” She looks at Freyr, and sits down hard in the gravel. “John didn’t mean it like that.” She scrabbles helplessly in the rocks, aching to do something.

John panics, and he’s not sure, later, what happens exactly, but Lily puts her paws on Jessica’s legs, leans up, and licks away her tears. He freezes, half-sitting up from the ground where Lily had put him. He can almost taste the salt on Jessica’s cheeks, though he’s mostly trying not to hyperventilate.

Jessica’s eyes are wide open, and she stays still, even when Lily skitters backwards into John’s arms.

“You two are so bad at this,” Freyr says, a little gruffly.

“So.” John begins, and then promptly runs out of words. He’s still overwhelmed, all senses firing. It’s not unpleasant, exactly, but entirely devastating.

“What he meant,” Lily continues, voice soft, “Is that we can’t think of anyone better suited to keeping this for us until we come back.”

“Oh.” Jessica seems equally deprived of words. She hiccups a small laugh. “Sorry I’m such a spaz.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lily says, in the tone of voice that means John’s suffering is imminent, and Jessica, recognizing it, laughs for a while, helplessly.

Freyr walks his way down Jessica’s arm, and pecks curiously at the book in her lap. The binding’s worn, but it’s still holding, and John feels a wave of nostalgia wash over himself. “That’s, uh, that was my mom’s favorite book. She had it when she was little, I think.”

Jessica peers at the cover, “It’s too dark for me to see, what is it?”

Lily replies, with great satisfaction, “The Velveteen Rabbit.” John swats at her half-heartedly, but he continues for her, “It’s about a toy rabbit that becomes real.”

“What he’s not telling you,” Lily says, snickering, “Is that he read this every day for a year when he was six.”

Jessica giggles with her, “Really? I didn’t peg you as the rabbit plush toy type, John.”

He ducks his head, glad that the night is hiding his blush. “It got me through some tough times.”

“Oh,” Jessica says, running her fingers over the cover of the book, “Is this -? When we met?”

“Yeah.” Lily and John reply in unison, which apparently sends Freyr over the edge too, as he makes little bird-sneezes of mirth.

Later, the four of them collapsed in a heap of tangled limbs, Jessica strokes a hand carefully through Lily’s thick fur, and says, hushed. “I’ll wait for you.”

-

The explosion knocks him flat, and he’s not sure what happened, because Lily’s not behind him, and Kara – Kara shot him.

He’s not sure why she didn’t aim for his head or chest – at that range, it would have been a clean death. John dully registers the acrid smell of smoke. He’d like to think that she had meant for him to live, but it’s far more likely that she had wanted to leave him to die in excruciating pain, bleeding out from the hepatic artery or waiting for his organs to finish dissolving in stomach acid.

“Are you planning to lie there feeling sorry for yourself? Behind enemy lines, no less.” Lily pads up from somewhere in the shadows, barely outlined by the burning shell of the building behind her.

He turns over when she tugs at his shoulder. “They burned us. We were never meant to walk out of this alive, Lils.”

Lily drops a small pack on the ground, and fishes a roll of bandages out with her teeth. John continues. “There’s nothing to go back to.” She noses his hand off the wound, and drops the cloth in it.

Unheedingly, she tugs his coat and shirt up, and begins lapping at his skin, cleaning the wound. He knows she deserves better, and fists a hand in the loose skin behind her neck. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

“Well, you can start now.” Lily says, matter-of-fact. “I don’t really fancy chewing that bullet out of you.”

John feels lightheaded, thinks maybe he’s going to die soon, and is sorry for it, because he doesn’t think Lily deserves to just disappear in a swirl of golden dust. She bites him when she thinks he’s being stupid, lends him her strength when he can’t move on his own, ceaselessly guards him to the best of her ability, and sits on him to keep him humble. Lily is the sum of his best parts, and the only one who will know to miss him when he is gone.

“Good lord,” she says, and bites him, hard, in the shoulder. “You are going to take that pair of tweezers and get the bullet out, and then we are going to do what we should have done months ago. We're going to Jessica.” John turns his face away from even the temptation of what Lily's offering. He can see it, but he knows enough to keep from hoping it's true.

“This isn't even a fatal wound, you giant melodramatic baby. Look at that.” Lily huffs. “It’s not anywhere near your organs. The bullet probably went right through your muscle, though, so don’t pass out on me before you get some bandages on there.”

She keeps him conscious by licking at his face, her tongue slightly rough on his face. “Don’t think I won’t bite you again if you start wallowing.” Lily warns.

John says, somewhat short of breath, “I didn’t think you could tell.”

“We’re separated, you idiot, not sundered.” She softens her glare, and says, “What you said before, about the - you still have me.”

John tests the padding at his hip, giddily unsure if this is a hallucination and he’s actually still dying. Is it wrong to feel the happiest he has in years with a bullet hole in his side? “Stop that,” Lily barks. “Jessica’s waiting for you back home, remember?”

“It’s been two months,” he says, still sitting on the ground. Lily stares at him like he’s not particularly bright, unimpressed with his train of thought. “You realize we’re both fugitives after this. Nothing is going to be safe.”

Lily sneezes at him, probably at the idea of danger too, the motion shaking out her ruff, and gets to her feet. “John, you’ll always have me. We’re gonna be just fine.”

-

_"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"_

_"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."_

_"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit._

_"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."_

_"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"_

_"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."_

\- The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SORRY, THE VELVETEEN RABBIT GIVES ME A LOT OF FEELINGS.
> 
> *wanders away to sob into a pillow*
> 
> Daemons  
> John: Lily, wolf  
> Kara: Shani, blue-capped ifrita  
> Jessica: Freyr, common canary  
> Mark Snow: Romulus, red fox  
> Aunt Susan: Esther, bandicoot


End file.
